Friday, January 07, 2005
Psyched - Dealing with Abusive Coaches
What if your kid doesn't like sports?
Psyched - Dealing with Abusive Coaches: says:
HELLO! Attention sports fans everywhere! Some of us don't like sports. Some of us find the whole mindless comptetion thing and the constant presure to pummel your enemy into the ground to be somewhat barbaric. Many people find the idea of freezing your A off while running around with a ball or worse, watching those who are, to be quite boring and unentertaining at times. Just because your kid doesn't like sports does not mean they are freaks or the coach yells at them too much.
I did the soccer dad thing and was married to a coach and referee for 5 years, my step daughter loved it, my step son did not. He felt pressured to compete by his dad who is a sports guy and his mom who was actually coaching and refereeing at the time, so he kept doing it but we often had trouble getting him to games or encouraging him to participate once he got there. He just didn't enjoy it and always became frustrated that he was just never going to be the superstar everyone expected no matter how hard he tried. We always let him make the decision to play or not, but he never wanted to hurt anyone's feelings and played anyway just to keep from having to sit on the sidelines.
See, I do know something about sports first hand. I slept with a soccer coach and referee for five years! She finally quit because she was tired of being abused by the over zealous parents who wanted to "go, fight, win" and could care less about sportsmanship or letting everyone play even though that is the one rule in AYSO soccer. There are really way too many jock head parents in youth sports, trust me I used to take the calls at 6am asking "is my kid starting today?"
At least the good doctor who wrote this article concludes "The easiest way to deal with an abusive coach is to not allow him or her from coming into contact with our children. Simply put, stop the problem before it occurs. To do this, you need to do some self-examination and research. "
Which is more than I can say for many people who just care about winning and let coaches abuse their children in the name of "fun".
Psyched - Dealing with Abusive Coaches: says:
" So who is to blame for this? Just like with my nephew, the suspect is all too often the coach. One study found that the top two reasons children cited for quitting organized sports were that it was no longer fun or interesting. The individual who should be held accountable for this is the coach."This is just nuts. This article is all about what to do if you have an abusive coach, which the author admits is quite often in modern youth sports, and that's always good info to have because unfortunately it is too often true; but to say that all kids who find sports uninteresting have the coach to blame is unfair to coaching and the children.
HELLO! Attention sports fans everywhere! Some of us don't like sports. Some of us find the whole mindless comptetion thing and the constant presure to pummel your enemy into the ground to be somewhat barbaric. Many people find the idea of freezing your A off while running around with a ball or worse, watching those who are, to be quite boring and unentertaining at times. Just because your kid doesn't like sports does not mean they are freaks or the coach yells at them too much.
I did the soccer dad thing and was married to a coach and referee for 5 years, my step daughter loved it, my step son did not. He felt pressured to compete by his dad who is a sports guy and his mom who was actually coaching and refereeing at the time, so he kept doing it but we often had trouble getting him to games or encouraging him to participate once he got there. He just didn't enjoy it and always became frustrated that he was just never going to be the superstar everyone expected no matter how hard he tried. We always let him make the decision to play or not, but he never wanted to hurt anyone's feelings and played anyway just to keep from having to sit on the sidelines.
See, I do know something about sports first hand. I slept with a soccer coach and referee for five years! She finally quit because she was tired of being abused by the over zealous parents who wanted to "go, fight, win" and could care less about sportsmanship or letting everyone play even though that is the one rule in AYSO soccer. There are really way too many jock head parents in youth sports, trust me I used to take the calls at 6am asking "is my kid starting today?"
At least the good doctor who wrote this article concludes "The easiest way to deal with an abusive coach is to not allow him or her from coming into contact with our children. Simply put, stop the problem before it occurs. To do this, you need to do some self-examination and research. "
Which is more than I can say for many people who just care about winning and let coaches abuse their children in the name of "fun".
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